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The Pistole Fee Dispute

The pistole fee dispute of
1753–1754 was a political battle between the House of Burgesses and Virginia lieutenant governor
Robert Dinwiddie over
Dinwiddie's decision to charge a fee of one pistole (approximately 18 shillings) for
each land patent to which he attached the colony's seal. Though royal policy gave
colonial governors the
right to establish officers' fees with the consent of the governor's Council, the practice was not enforced
in Virginia, where fees were
usually determined by the General
Assembly. The controversy over the pistole fee was so heated that Dinwiddie
and the House of Burgesses sent representatives to London to argue their cases before
the Privy Council. The Privy
Council upheld the fee and Dinwiddie's right to establish it, but imposed certain
restrictions on the fee to conciliate the House of Burgesses—a compromise that was
accepted by the opposing parties but did not address the constitutional issue of
whether colonial legislatures had the right to defeat local taxes proposed by the
British government. The questions that were raised by opponents of the fee (including
Richard Bland and Landon Carter) regarding British
authority and the rights of Virginians would resurface in 1765 with the passage of
the Stamp Act. MORE...

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Background

In August 1751, just after he was
officially appointed lieutenant governor of Virginia, Robert Dinwiddie was
determined to reform the land patent process in that colony. The Crown collected a
fee called a quitrent on patented lands in America, but in Virginia, it was common
practice for buyers (and especially land speculators) to avoid paying the quitrent
by taking out a warrant of survey on a piece of land and holding it indefinitely,
without a patent. To regularize the procedure for granting land patents, and to
allow the colony to profit from westward expansion, Dinwiddie argued, it would be
useful to require that lands be patented immediately after survey and to charge a
fee of one pistole (a Spanish coin worth about 18 shillings at that time) for each
patent. Such a fee had not previously been customary in Virginia. In 1689 the
Privy Council had discontinued a similar charge established by then-governor Francis Howard, baron
of Effingham, on the grounds that he had not set the fee with the consent
of the governor's Council, as required by the Crown. Since then, no Virginia
governor had charged for the sealing of land patents, though it was common to do
so in the other North American colonies.

Fee Establishment and Controversy

In April 1752 Dinwiddie obtained approval from the governor's Council for
establishing the pistole fee, so he expected little opposition. In October, to
ensure the fee's legality, he wrote the Board of Trade for its consent, which it gave in
February 1753. But that spring, as news of the proposal spread, Virginians began
to question whether the fee was really within the law. In Dinwiddie's own
thinking, the fee was simply an administrative charge for handling the
distribution of lands that the king owned anyway; as the king's servant the
governor had the right to decide the amount of the charges. And according to royal
policy, a colonial governor was allowed to determine officers' fees with the
consent of his council. But this rule had never been strictly enforced, and in
Virginia, fees were usually established by the colonial legislature, so many
Virginians viewed the pistole fee as illegal. In addition, opponents of the fee
argued that it actually constituted a tax and, as such, should have been approved
by the appropriate colonial legislature. For a governor to initiate such a charge
was to abridge the established rights of colonial assemblies to initiate or defeat
proposed taxes.

Resistance to the fee intensified throughout the summer and fall of 1753. Hundreds
of land patents were awaiting seal in the governor's office, and Dinwiddie's
demand that lands be patented directly after survey meant that powerful land
speculators, who often held lands on warrant of survey without officially
patenting them, would owe years of quitrents. William Stith, president of the College of William and Mary
and chaplain of the House of Burgesses, introduced a toast, "Liberty &
Property and no Pistole," which became wildly popular throughout the colony.
Burgess Richard Bland published a pamphlet, A Fragment on the
Pistole Fee, Claimed by the Governor of Virginia (1753), in which he
railed against the fee, calling Dinwiddie's proposal "subversive of the Rights and
Liberties of my Country." Bland noted that while governors of other colonies might
collect such fees with the approval of their legislatures, Virginians "cannot be
deprived of the least part of their property without [the] consent" of the
people's representatives. In a letter to the bishop of London, Stith argued, "Our
Laws have clearly settled the Methods of taking up new Lands, & prescribed
the several Fees to the several Officers; wch certainly implies an Exemption from
all other Fees, except those specified by Law; & the Governor might by the
same Reason have demanded 10, 20, or 100 Pistoles as one."

In November 1753, inhabitants of several
Virginia counties—Henrico,
Chesterfield, Cumberland, Albemarle, Amelia, and Dinwiddie—petitioned the
House of Burgesses against the proposed new charges. During that session the House
addressed Dinwiddie, asking by whose permission he had decided to levy the fee.
After he replied that he had done it on his own, with the consent of the Council,
the burgesses declared the fee unconstitutional and decided that an appeal should
be made to the Crown. On December 15, the House appointed Peyton Randolph, Virginia's attorney general, to
present its address against the fee to the Privy Council. Meanwhile, the
governor's Council drafted an address to the Crown in support of Dinwiddie, who
appointed James Abercromby to lobby in England on his behalf.

The Privy Council

The Privy Council set the pistole fee
hearing for June 18, 1754. In the meantime, Abercromby and Randolph, both in
London, sought support for their respective sides of the controversy. The London
periodical Gentleman's Magazine ran notices, likely
supplied by Randolph, that described the dispute in terms unfavorable to Dinwiddie
and fueled debate in London coffee houses; Randolph may also have arranged for the
London publication of Landon Carter's pamphlet A Letter from a
Gentleman in Virginia, to the Merchants of Great Britain, Trading to that
Colony (1754), in which Carter defended the power of the House of
Burgesses. Abercromby sought to counter these publications by becoming acquainted
with the various boards and offices that controlled colonial affairs.

When the Privy Council finally met on June 18, 1754, to consider the rival
petitions from Virginia, they recommended tentatively in favor of the governor and
the fee, but hedged their approval with a number of restraints: Fees were
disallowed on patents initiated before April 22, 1752, when Dinwiddie had first
proposed his own fee. Dinwiddie was not to charge a fee on patents for one hundred
acres or less, on patents submitted by families "imported" from outside the
colony, or on patents for lands west of the Alleghany Mountains. Finally, patents
were limited to a thousand acres. The Privy Council sent these restraints to
Dinwiddie on July 3, 1754, adding a request that he reinstate as attorney general
Peyton Randolph, who Dinwiddie had dismissed when Randolph became agent for the
burgesses.

On receiving the orders from the Privy
Council in October 1754, both sides accepted the decision as a workable
compromise, though Dinwiddie complained that the restraints left his authority too
vague. His opponents continued to imply that by not chastising Dinwiddie directly
the Privy Council had virtually authorized local taxes based on English authority.
Momentarily, however, both sides were satisfied. Landon Carter, hardly a
gubernatorial friend, wrote that "both parties having got something, both seemed
to hug themselves with victory."

Aftermath

To some, the Privy Council's orders represented "the perfect political
compromise," but to others, they were an irritant. The Council had clearly
intended to appease the burgesses, but their response to the petition confirmed
the right of the governor to establish fees without consulting the colonial
legislature and ignored the constitutional aspect of the House's petition. As for
Dinwiddie, his attempt to establish the fee without consulting the House
interrupted more than twenty years of cooperation between the Virginia legislature
and its royal government. And, perhaps more destructively, the pistole fee dispute
raised questions in the minds of Virginians about British authority and their
rights as Americans—questions that would profoundly focus American thinking in the
run-up to the American
Revolution (1775–1783).

Time Line

1689
- The Privy Council, responding to a complaint from the House of Burgesses, discontinues a fee, established by Governor Francis Howard, for sealing land patents. The fee is discontinued on the grounds that it had not been established with consent of the governor's Council as required by the Crown.

August 1751
- Newly appointed Virginia lieutenant governor Robert Dinwiddie seeks the Board of Trade's permission to take a fee for sealing land patents. The Board does not act on his application before he leaves England.

April 1752
- Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie secures the consent of the governor's Council to charge a fee of one pistole (about 18 shillings) for sealing land patents.

October 6, 1752
- Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie writes the Board of Trade seeking its approval a second time for the pistole fee.

1753
- Burgess Richard Bland publishes a pamphlet, A Fragment on the Pistole Fee, Claimed by the Governor of Virginia, in which he rails against the fee on land patents, calling Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie's proposal "subversive of the Rights and Liberties of my Country."

April 21, 1753
- William Stith, president of the College of William and Mary and leader of the opposition to the pistole fee, writes to the bishop of London that Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie's demand "gave a very general Disgust & Alarms to the whole Country."

November 1753
- Six Virginia counties—Henrico, Chesterfield, Cumberland, Albemarle, Amelia, and Dinwiddie—petition the House of Burgesses against the pistole fee.

December 4, 1753
- The House of Burgesses passes a set of resolutions, drafted in part by Richard Bland, declaring that the pistole fee is unconstitutional and that an appeal for its discontinuation should be made to the Crown.

December 6, 1753
- The governor's Council attempts to reconcile the dispute between Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie and the House of Burgesses by introducing a bill to establish a fee for sealing land patents. The House of Burgesses rejects the bill.

December 15, 1753
- The governor's Council draws up an address to the Crown supporting Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie's attempt to establish a pistole fee. The House of Burgesses appoints Peyton Randolph, attorney general of Virginia, to present its address against the fee in England.

February 18, 1754
- Peyton Randolph brings the House of Burgesses' complaints against Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie's pistole fee in front of the Privy Council. The official hearing is set for June 18, 1754; until then, Randolph and James Abercromby, an agent for the governor, lobby on behalf of their clients.

June 18, 1754
- The official Privy Council hearing for the pistole fee commences.

June 24, 1754
- The Privy Council hands down its decision in the case against the pistole fee. The Council approves Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie's conduct and upholds his right to collect the fee, with some restrictions, and does not address the larger question of whether colonial legislatures have the right to defeat local taxes proposed by the British.

October 1754
- The Privy Council's order to uphold the pistole fee with certain concessions is received in Virginia. Both Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie and the House of Burgesses accept the compromise.

Categories

References

Further Reading

Greene, Jack P. "The Case of the Pistole Fee: The Report of a Hearing on the
Pistole Fee Dispute before the Privy Council, June 18, 1754." The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 66, no. 4 (October 1958):
399–422.